Healthy Pumpkin Seed Recipes You’ll Want to Make Again

With Halloween gone, now is the time to find those deals on pumpkins in the stores. You can make pumpkin puree with almost any pumpkin, but the holy grail of nutrition, is found in those pumpkin seeds.

Not all pumpkin seed recipes are healthy. Once you’ve added the butter or oil, and possibly an overload of salt, they become well…less heathy. Since I am a huge fan of pumpkin anything, and have been more mindful of ingredients and nutrition, I decided to come up with my own new flavors of pumpkin seeds!  Continue reading

The New Additions to our Stranger Things Yard 2022

Hopper and Eleven are in the elevator, trying to close gate.

Now that Halloween is over, and props are back down, I have a little time to share my latest additions to my Stranger Things yard haunt. Last year, I created The Mindflayer, with over 200 feet of legs, Nancy’s arm coming out of the tree from the Upside Down World, a Gate, Will Byer’s Castle, Eleven, and an Alphabet Wall that actually spells secret messages.

This year, I added several more props, and created a different scene from Season 2, episode: The GateContinue reading

How to Make a Real Hair Beard for a Costume or Prop

Are you having problems finding a decent beard from your local stores or online vendors? You’re not the only one. After scouring Amazon, and other places, I felt a little desperate. I was making Hopper, from Stranger Things to go into my Halloween yard. I thought, how hard can it be to find a normal beard, that didn’t break the bank? Continue reading

Fast and Easy Stranger Things Demodog Heads to Make

demodog two liter head

Adding to our second year of our Stranger Things yard, we added a more visible gate, where demodog heads are scattered upon it. I even built a life-size, animatronic demodog that turns his head, when sensors are triggered. No, this is not that tutorial. It was not easy, nor fast. But the demodog heads on the gate? Easy Peasy.  Follow these quick directions, and you’ll have a Stranger Things vibe in no time.

Continue reading

Making a Life-Sized Barrel from The Nightmare Before Christmas

barrel trio

I’d like to apologize to the frustrated creators, trying to find the link from my original post, Lock, Shock and Barrel Life-Sized Characters – DIY.  It seems a few years back, a glitch deleted content off my site. Here is the long-awaited tutorial for Barrel:

Continue reading

Making a Life-Sized Shock, from The Nightmare Before Christmas

lock shock barrel

First, let me apologize to the several frustrated creators looking for directions for the Shock and Barrel tutorials. The posts were written, and I thought were linked/published. But after a creator clued me in on the missing posts, I went back and couldn’t find them. Continue reading

Making The Tree Portal From The Upside Down

nancy hand portal daylightSince I decided to build an Upside Down World for my 2021 Stranger Things Halloween display, making a huge Mind Flayer was a must. It was the first thing accomplished. Then, making all kinds of vines.

Next, it was The Tree Portal. The scene when Johnathan pulled Nancy back out of the tree, from The Upside Down World, must have struck a cord. Because I was determined to recreate it.

I knew whatever I used, had to hold up to the elements, allowed for a light to shine from inside out, and show Nancy’s hand through the goo and vines, reaching for Johnathan. This is how I accomplished it: Continue reading

How to Fix a Crack in a Cheesecake

One large crack has already been fixed. The smaller one, closest to the front, still needs a quick swiping. Copyright 2021, All Rights Reserved.

So, you’ve worked hard to follow a cheesecake recipe, and maybe you even did a water bath. But as you pulled the cake out of the oven, you noticed a big crack in the center of your cheesecake? Don’t fret. You don’t have to cover it up with fruit topping, or a ganache.

If your goal is to have an aesthetically pleasing cheesecake, you’ll appreciate this quick tutorial on how to fix even several inch-wide gaps.

.

Continue reading

Easy Last Minute Super Bowl Recipes

Image, courtesy of Home is Where the Boat is. They also offer an easy,
no-bake recipe, for Football cake pops.

If you are still scrambling to figure out some easy, quick menu items for Super Bowl, look no further. These recipes are sure to please a crowd. Best yet, they’re so simple, anyone can make. So, don’t forget to enlist your kids to help.

Continue reading

A Last Minute Valentine’s Day Gift to Make

After printing out on a black ink printer, use a red marker to fill in the hearts. Simple, but does the job.

It’s 2022, and many of us are still staying home, ordering online, or getting creative. Maybe we just forgot about getting a gift. This simple, quick template is not a fabulous design, full of flowers or crests. But for me, it does the job.

Continue reading